Obradovich: Let's not honor the dead with more death

Dec. 15, 2012

It’s difficult to deny urgent requests from well-meaning people who have suffered unimaginable loss.

That’s why some state legislators might be willing to entertain another debate on reinstating the death penalty in Iowa, even though the bill will almost certainly fail.

Gov. Terry Branstad has agreed to meet on Monday with the parents of 8-year-old Elizabeth Collins, an Evansdale girl who with her young cousin was abducted and murdered earlier this year. Drew Collins, Elizabeth’s father, said just after his daughter’s memorial service that he thinks the girls’ abductor — who has yet to be found — might have let them go if Iowa had a death penalty.

The tragic school shootings in Connecticut on Friday will add to Iowans’ fears that the world has become a perilous place for children.

It’s understandable that bereaved parents and an outraged public want to search for meaning in what can only be a meaningless, senseless crime. Getting a law passed, and maybe even named for a missing or murdered child, helps keep memories alive. Years later, when anyone is subjected to prosecution under that law, the child’s picture will appear in the media and the story will be retold.

It’s not my place to say how the Collinses or any parent should deal with grief. They deserve our respect and support as friends and neighbors. But we should not let our sympathy for the victims and anger at the criminals blind us to what is best for our state and our society.

Iowa repealed capital punishment in 1965 and today is one of 15 states without a death penalty. In 2011, Iowa ranked 44th out of 50 states in murders per 100,000 people. That was lower than every state with a death penalty except New Hampshire.

You can find studies and statistics to support whatever argument you want to make about the deterrent effect of capital punishment. I’m more persuaded by those that show state-sanctioned executions do little or nothing to deter crime. Either way, the sorts of crimes that some would seek to avoid with the death penalty happen here so rarely that we still remember the names of the victims years later.

In California, where executions are nearly unheard of, it costs an estimated $130 million a year to keep the death penalty on the books. Iowa’s low crime rate means the expense here would be far less, but there would be a cost. Most states pay more per case to litigate capital crimes and keep convicts on death row than it costs to prosecute and house those serving life sentences.

The real cost of capital punishment is not measured in money. It’s well-documented that innocent people have ended up on death row in this nation. The poor and minorities are far more likely to face execution than a wealthy white person convicted of similar crimes. As a society, each of us bears the responsibility for the lives taken by the state.

To his credit, Branstad has said he does not intend to push for the death penalty next year, even though he supports it. He says Democrats who control the Senate would not debate the bill. Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal confirmed that last week.

The Legislature’s death penalty debate in 1995 consumed a huge share of lawmakers’ attention and energy. The House approved a bill that year, but it failed in the Senate. Even after Republicans took control of both chambers in the 1996 elections, there weren’t enough votes to advance the bill. Gronstal shut down former Gov. Chet Culver’s overtures about the death penalty, too.

Iowans will remember Elizabeth Collins and Lyric Cook-Morrissey, just as we still feel the loss of Johnny Gosch, Eugene Martin, Anna Marie Emry and others. We should continue to look for ways to keep our children safe. But let’s not seek to honor their lives by allowing our state to sanction death.